Page 282 - persuasion

ville was beginning to say, when a slight noise called their
attention to Captain Wentworth’s hitherto perfectly quiet
division of the room. It was nothing more than that his pen
had fallen down; but Anne was startled at finding him near-
er than she had supposed, and half inclined to suspect that
the pen had only fallen because he had been occupied by
them, striving to catch sounds, which yet she did not think
he could have caught.
‘Have you finished your letter?’ said Captain Harville.
‘Not quite, a few lines more. I shall have done in five min-
utes.’
‘There is no hurry on my side. I am only ready when-
ever you are. I am in very good anchorage here,’ (smiling at
Anne,) ‘well supplied, and want for nothing. No hurry for a
signal at all. Well, Miss Elliot,’ (lowering his voice,) ‘as I was
saying we shall never agree, I suppose, upon this point. No
man and woman, would, probably. But let me observe that
all histories are against you—all stories, prose and verse. If
I had such a memory as Benwick, I could bring you fifty
quotations in a moment on my side the argument, and I do
not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not
something to say upon woman’s inconstancy. Songs and
proverbs, all talk of woman’s fickleness. But perhaps you
will say, these were all written by men.’
‘Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to
examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us
in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so
much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I
will not allow books to prove anything.’

282 Persuasion